DFID is committed to demonstrating the impact of UK aid. A focus on clear objectives and measuring results will help to ensure that DFID’s development efforts achieve the impact that it wants to make on global poverty.

This includes measuring the impact of governance interventions on voice and accountability (V&A). It also means identifying whether V&A interventions are impacting on broader developmental goals, such as those measured by the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) indicators.

In this paper we review conceptual approaches in order to present a framework that accommodates change at the level of individual behaviour and practice, and in policy and legislature. The paper discusses the importance of establishing a theory of change to demonstrate the causal relationship between V&A interventions and wider development impacts, but further work is required to establish the links between outcome and impact through V&A work.

The document adapts DFID’s ‘Capability, Accountability and Responsiveness’ (CAR) framework as the basis for interpreting V&A interventions. By reviewing global governance measurements and case studies from a range of donor V&A interventions, we map existing indicators and indices on to this operational framework. From this, we develop a menu of V&A indicators – and accompanying data collection instruments – for discussion1.

The paper is organised as follows:

• Section 2 presents the rationale for the paper.
• Section 3 discusses in more detail the operational framework and maps global indexes and programme/project case studies reviewed for this paper on to the framework (with details provided in Annexes B and C).
• Section 4 presents the V&A indicators mapped on to the operational framework and discusses the types of data gathering instruments that might be used.
• Section 5 provides some simple guidance on how to identify V&A indicators and on what data to collect and how to collect it.
• Section 6 concludes.

The Annexes provide detail of indicators and measures already in use. Annex B draws out V&A measures from global measurements and indices that already exist. Annex C maps the indicators used in individual projects onto the CAR framework. We have not attempted to make any judgement on the importance of particular indicators used, but have included the detail at Annex C in order to demonstrate the depth and range of indicators already in use.

Readers might also be interested in an earlier, companion report JOINT EVALUATION OF CITIZENS’ VOICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY (synthesis report).

It can be accessed at: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/Documents/publications/evaluation/voice-accountability-synthesis.pdf